Katastrophikus

What I never understood is that Satan in meant to father the Antichrist (source). That means that Satan, at any time, could chose NOT to have a child. The results would be the indefininte postponement of the Second Coming. This means that he'll have all the time in the world to send people to Hell, since God sees fit to create more.

Anyone with half a brain can see that this is the winning strategy, let alone Satan.

The only way that this wouldn't play out this way is if Satan doesn't have a choice in the matter. And if he doesn't have a choice, there's no free will and God chose to create Satan and the Antichrist, et al.

gdeering

Sorry but this does not hang together. Satan is God’s robot or he’s convinced that the out come he knows will occur (for some reason) can be changed? Maybe it makes more sense in the Left Behind Books. All I am hearing is that Satan’s a robot and we atheists are damned because of our “free will”?

By the way, didn’t Satan eat from the tree of Knowledge and (everlasting) Life, just like God, is God talking to angels or other gods in Genesis 3:22? Because it seems like the other inhabitants of where ever they are also had both fruits.

As to free will, I tell you and God that I realize that I am going to hell - so I do not need any more monitoring. I demand that God allow me my free will and stop reading my thoughts and watching me constantly. I am waiting for conformation from God. Where is my free will, I want to opt out of the program knowing full well the consequences.


Gregg

graymouser

Can you prove this with actual scriptural references? Paul, for instance, is quite clear about the idea of predestination - it was a major conflict for me when I was a Christian because I was fairly hard-core in believing in philosophical free will, but felt torn when I read the passages in Paul (Rom. 8:29-30 comes to mind) about predestination and election, it seemed that the Bible contradicted this idea. I believe that Calvinism, with its total determinism, has much more of a Biblical basis than any kind of Arminianism or other free will based soteriology. Where is free will in the Bible? Where is it in the Bible's talk about salvation (NT references only please)?

IBelieveInHymn

Freewill;

God also determined that man would have free-will, the ability and
responsibility to choose to obey Him (cf. Gen. 3:1-6; Josh. 24:15; Matt.
11:28).

God did not predestine the man (which individuals would be saved & lost), He
predestined the plan (how men would be saved) Acts 10:34-35;
Eph. 1:3-12; Rom. 8:28-30; 10:9-17.

By using our free-will we choose whether to be "in Christ" and thus saved
(Gal. 3:26-27).

the Bible teaches that God elected (predestined or set in place)
to save every soul who "fears God and works righteousness" (Acts 10:34-35).
That is, before time eternal, God predestined that men would be saved "in
Christ" (Eph. 1:3-4, 7-12). God predestined the "plan" of human redemption
(Eph. 3:10-11).

Salvation;

One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: "Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?" Jesus replied, "What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?" The man answered, " 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.' And, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' " "Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you will live!" (Luke 10:25-28)

N.T references you asked for..

There are many other Bible verses, especially in John, that imply that faith in Christ is a condition of salvation (John 5:24, John 6:28-29, John 6:47, John 9:35, John 11:25-26, John 12:36, John 20:31, Galatians 2:16, Galatians 2:20, Galatians 3:26).

IBelieveInHymn

Satan is not the Father of the Anti-Christ.


Satan doesn't have a choice in the matter. This is God's world, Not Satan's. God predistined the plan of mankind through the salvation of Jesus Christ. Satan is doomed, and all of his followers will go down with him in the end.

Deus Ex

IBIH,

Is there anything that would convince you that you are wrong in your beliefs? Are you infallible?

Dark Virtue

You're taking liberties with the text...isn't that a no no?

Deuteronomy 12: 32 See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.

Looks like you're walking on thin ice. You, in your infinite wisdom, added the last part, "and the evil was not placed there by God."

How, pray tell, can a being, perfect in ALL ways, have evil in him? Let us remember that God isn't without tipping the scales in his favor, like when he hardened Pharaoh's heart several times so he could make his point.

For the record, let's look at what that scripture ACTUALLY says (from KJV)...

Why are you twisting the scriptures?

If this was not your intention, I suggest being more careful when you quote.

Dark Virtue

Essentially, what you're saying is that God creating this world of pain, torture and death to prove a point?

I'm not a being of infinite wisdom or compassion, but even I could come up with a better scenario than that.

Katastrophikus

I have your say-so versue the say-so of other true believing Christians. How can I tell who is right? The texts, if you're going to follow the completely unsupported idea of a single Antichrist and the rapture, certainly seems to support them, no matter how much you roll your eyes.


So, there's three of us in a line on the edge of a cliff. I am the furthest back and I push the second person who, in falling off the cliff, takes the third person with them. The second person is actually responsible for the fall?

That's awesome.

Sarcasm aside, it is quite clear that you are implying that God set a chain of events in motion that will doom fallible humans to an eternity of torture. Furthermore, his plan for mankind also entailed blaming the victims.

I would love to see a a reading of the Lord of the Rings where Sauron just sends his orcs out to explain to men and elves that it's their fault his orcs are raiding, killing and raping.

graymouser

Eph. 1:3-6 reads as follows (all quotations are NASB):
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved."

Rom. 8:28-30 reads as follows:
"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified."

These scriptures really don't make your point at all - in fact, they make the opposite point, that man is predestined to God.

This seems a very odd sort of doublethink: when the Bible says that God predestined men, you think that he predestined some kind of salvation but in a way that didn't step on the toes of free will. But none of the scripture you cite says anything like your idea that God "did not predestine the man," in fact Paul repeatedly talks of how he predestined those he foreknew. You're doing eisegesis, reading what you want to see - namely free will - into the scriptures, rather than reading what's actually in them.

I didn't think you'd torture free will out of Paul and you didn't - you're just reading it right into the text. That's very familiar to me, when I was a Christian I thought very hard about this, spinning in theology, trying to get away from the predestination that is clearly on the page in Romans and Ephesians. Other Christians who I knew had similar problems - except the Calvinists, their world view is gloomy but it doesn't have the cognitive dissonance of reconciling free will with the NT.